The Wednesdays are for Walking With series explores the Disciple Like You Mean It online training from Next Step Press. In this special production of the Next Step Podcast, we will practice non-judgmental noticing with Jesus and help one another take a small next step, together.

Episode 07 was first recorded on Wednesday, December 19, 2023. It features an advent devotion by Justin Rossow and a conversation with Professor Ted Hopkins from Concordia University, Ann Arbor.

0:00-14:30
After some background on Professor Ted Hopkins and an opening prayer, you'll hear the text for today's episode: Psalm 35:1-6, 22-28. Then we'll get an initial response to that reading before listening to an advent devotion (8:00-14:30 ).

14:31-22:29
Then you'll hear Drs Hopkins and Rossow discussion the theology behind the devotion and what it means to experience other people as enemies, but to hold that experience within a broader Scriptural narrative.

22:30-35:15
The talk then turns to Advent Eschatology (that is, the study of the last things, or end times: the Second Coming) and prolepsis (that is, God's future participating in your present). A brief discussion of those theological categories leads into a longer wrestling with a very practical question (25:17 ): what do I do when I experience someone as an enemy, even at Christmas?

35:16-end
Before we are done, we'll think through what we might have said to King David if he had joined us for this podcast, and Ted and Justin both consider what kind of response the Spirit may be shaping in them (42:38 ) before Pastor Hopkins closes us with prayer.

CHOOSE YOUR FAITH ADVENTURE

If you would like to hear (or read) more from Prof. Hopkins, you have options:

• Ted's academic volume: Christ, Church, and World: Bonhoeffer and Lutheran Ecclesiology after Christendom.


• Ted's last appearance on the Next Step Podcast: Season 2 (Ponder Anew), Episode 12: It is Well With My Soul.


• A series of articles on the Next Step Community Blog: Change? Who Said Anything About Change?; Faithful Change; and Great (and Not-So-Great) Expectations.

If you decide to explore the Scripture verses cited in this episode, you can start with this list:

• Psalm 35:1-6, 22-28 (Let them be clothed with shame and dishonor who magnify themselves against me!)


• Romans 5:6-11 (While we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son.)


• Romans 12:14-21 (Vengeance is mine, declares the Lord.)


• 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 (God made him who had no sin to be sin for us.)


• Galatians 3:7-14 (Christ became a curse for us.)


• Psalm 31:5 (in context) and Luke 23:44-46 (Into your hands I commit my spirit.)

If you want to watch, or share, the Advent devotion on Psalm 35:26 , check out the YouTube video, below.

https://youtu.be/Qh_q96cZx7k?si=AgfRABnZ2ArBX6JJ

The intro and outro music comes from Peter Prochnow's rendition of the hymn, "Awake My Soul and With the Sun" and is available from the Michigan District of the LCMS at www.thehymnalproject.com. Used by permission.

If you choose to explore taking a Triad through the Disciple Like You Mean It course, visit this page.

This episode of the Next Step Podcast was supported in part by the generosity of Next Step Patrons. Please consider becoming a Next Step Patron before the end 2023. To see different options for support, including monthly and annual options, visit https://www.patreon.com/findmynextstep, or email justin@findmynextstep.org to make a one-time gift.

Thank you to all of our Patrons! Patrons make it possible.